The final day of the Parabola programme was a good demonstration of the variety and vitality that this venue has always delivered. Very few people will have liked the whole programme, but nobody will have left without hearing something inspiring.
The day started with Julien Durand’s Dreamscapes. Durand is a French-Chinese guitarist based in London, but a graduate from Birmingham. This is a five-piece band with Cenk Esen (keys), Jack Robson (drums) and George Garford (sax), with vocals from Lucy-Anne Daniels. The name gives a partial clue to the nature of the music, but this wasn’t just a dreamy soundscape – there were solid rhythms and powerful improvisation here too, as well as an intelligent use of electronics.
The second gig saw the stage filled with some of the UK’s best improvising musicians to perform Sam Eastmond‘s arrangements of John Zorn’s bagatelles. London composer Eastmond has worked closely with John Zorn and is the only UK musician entrusted with Bagatelles. As far as I know he’s also the only person who has made a big band arrangement of Zorn’s music. This was the first festival performance of this exhilarating music. Zorn’s melodies seem to inspire creativity, and the quality of the improvisation on show was outstanding. It was entertaining too to watch Eastmond’s animated conducting.
The final Parabola performance of the weekend was a special event. After standing down last year as the sole programmer at the Parabola, Tony Dudley-Evans was offered sponsorship from Longrow Capital to create a special commission. The brief was to help ensure that the reputation of the parabola as the home of creativity and innovation was maintained under the new regime.
Un-procedure are normally synth player Piera Onacko and drummer/electronic artist Nathan Jones, both from Birmingham, normally joined by saxophonist Cassie Kinoshi. The event was slightly marred by the fact that Kinoshi was unfortunately stranded in Berlin, although she did send a recorded contribution.
The commission also enhanced the band with the addition of strings and woodwinds, There was a large screen behind the band showing graphics throughout the hour long performance. The music of un-procedure is dominated by electronics and keyboards with powerful drumming. The depth and power of the music was sometimes overwhelming.
Given the stated objective of this commission it certainly made its contribution. In fact there was no sign over the weekend of any slackening of the commitment to innovative jazz. No other festival, no other venue, maintains such a dedicated programme from the cutting edge of the many different genres of what we loosely call jazz.
Long may it continue.
